Order picking operations involve extracting specified goods from a storage system in a retail facility or a warehouse, and collecting them, for example, to prepare customers orders. Order picking processes have become the most labor-intensive and costly part of the supply chain for any warehouse or retail environment, where the cost of order picking is estimated to be as much as 55% of the total operating expense. This makes order picking one of the most controlled logistic processes.
Known order picking systems perform effective collection of goods having a regular shape, such as goods packed in rectangular packages. However, for goods having irregular shapes, such as grocery products, known order picking systems are less effective. For example, articles having irregular shapes cannot be firmly held by the picking mechanism. Therefore, they can fall from the picking mechanism during transfer from one box to another. In addition, instead of one article required for the customer's order, multiple articles can be taken from a box.
Therefore, it would be desirable to develop novel order picking system and method capable of handling articles having irregular shapes.